Well as you know, I'm the Buddha, and that already tells you quite a bit. However, I thought you should have a little overview about my life. I suppose we really should start at the beginning. First off, I was a prince (Prince Siddhartha, that is) of the Sakyan kingdom. You probably weren't alive to remember it, but it was this beautiful little kingdom near the Himalayas. Anyway, I married my stunning cousin Yasodhara and had a son. Probably more information than you wanted, I know, but back then incest was best.

Yet, the realities of life became a burden. I just kept seeing everything so beautiful coming to an end, and it was so difficult to handle. I slipped into a bit of depression that I felt I could only escape by leaving the confines of the kingdom. My father was really angry with me and tried to buy me off with material things and even women, but that just made things worse. I feel kind of stuck up saying that, but I couldn't help how I felt. The one day I ran into four things on the streets that changed my life. First I saw a very old man, obviously plagued by his old age. Then I saw another man suffering from disease. Then a corpse. I was feeling really anxious from all of this, and began to run back to the palace where I could be alone with my thoughts. On the way back, however, I saw a monk. Seeing him gave me hope that perhaps there was a way out of all this suffering.

With new-found determination, I left everything behind. It felt terrible to leave my wife and my son, but I couldn't be the husband or father either deserved in my current state. So I did what I had to do, threw my selfishness out of mind, and began on my quest to find an end to suffering. So I practiced Yoga and then a life of self denial. After practicing in the forest for nearly six years I came to the conclusion that these practices provided insight, but were not the right answer.

I then learned business and pleasure and found these things to be very distracting from my goal. I again found myself giving up the material values of life and at a loss of what to do next. I later travelled to a river I thought once beautiful but gave me no aesthetic pleasure any longer. Unable to even appreciate the simple pleasures of life, I thought it best to end my life. Yet something called out to me in the resonance of the holy syllable "Om" and I was swept away into a dreamless sleep. My past disappeared and I awoke with the ability to find what I had been looking for all these years.

I found myself drawn to the river after the experience had changed me. I spent many days listening to hear the beauty that had saved me, yet I was deaf to the song of the waters. As days moved on, I kept up hope, and I was fortunate enough to be able to care for a dying woman travelling on the river. As I watched her pass, I asked her how it was that she felt so calm. She told me "I am happy to return to the river which is so peaceful." Once she was gone I ran to the waters to listen for her voice, and I once again heard that tone of "Om." It was the sound of Nirvana, the sound of all souls singing the joy of the end of the cycle of rebirth.

Under the Bodhi tree at Gaya, I meditated. It was then that I saw my past, present and future. From that day on I had achieved enlightenment and understood my task in life. I was to give up Nirvana at each physical death, and continue being reborn to help people understand their true path.